Dale Farms

poor folk?

Yeah, they aren't poor!

Travellers generally seem to manage to have loads and loads of money despite not seeming to work in typically well-paid jobs (but they won't talk about money or where they get it from). If you watched any of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding on Channel 4 a few months ago, you'll have seen how lavish their weddings are... of course, there was no talk of cost on the show itself, but it was estimated that the wedding dresses alone cost up to £20,000, with the entire cost of a wedding being well over £100,000!

I remember one of the traveller sites near me being raided by the police a few years ago because they found a stash of £100,000 in cash in one of the caravans!

K - exactly that is what my DH said....when he was an apprentice back in the day in the trade he was in...he always saw traveler with loads of cash - they dont use banks, pay taxes ect... I think wow if we kept DH's portion that goes to tax now and didn't pay tax man we would have a hell of a lump sum.

I agree it isn't race because it is behavior and travelers are not the only ones NOT paying the government and getting benefits - aka working the system.  They are just better at keep cash and living as a group/family.

I say power to traveling as a culture but also this is the 21st century and to support health care, children in school, the roads everyone drives on, public transport ect.. ect.. you must pitch in. You can travel all day and night and park in designated areas but its like me renting a caravan and driving across the UK and not wanting to pay at each stop - no sorry it doesn't work that way.  Everyone has to earn their keep and stop the live off the government mentality or it will jsut be broke.  Everyone has to follow the same rules no matter what culture or race you are.

By allowing a certain group to not follow the rules isn't that culturist (is that a word?) or racist towards everyone else that has to be main stream?

Also, the gov't has been trying to do something about it for like 9 years.  They have been fighting them through the courts. 

Well it's bling really. Veblen talks a lot about the difference between conspicuous consumption and true wealth. Having £20K in a shoe box is not wealth (though to me who can't scrape together a tenner it would be nice - and quite frankly given pension raiding and artificial low interest rates, the shoebox might be the way to go).

A friend and I were just discussing this, how different things would be if tax and rent were somehow magically removed. We too would have a roll in our pockets. As a socialist, these things confuse me greatly.

But I am not in total disagreement with previous posters. Times have changed and as we have all personally experienced, mobility isn't as easy as it was before. Living "off the grid" is hard to do now and comes at a 'price'. I don't know if I have the smarts to sort out the morality behind that. As far as this particular episode, my 'spidey senses' just tingle when I see a group of people herded off. We have seen this sort of thing in the past, and even if this situation bears little resemblance to the more troubling instances involving other 'groups', it is an area where I feel caution and much thought should be excersised.

I'm sorry- I just feel sorry for them.  I've not heard one person (not saying people on this board but the public in general) say good things about them, and it just smacks of racism to me.  Surely out of the thousands of travelers.. wether they be gypsies or Irish travelers there are a few good eggs??? Just maybe?? I feel they all are being tarred with the same brush, and it makes me sad.  The laws have been changed making it hard for them to live the lifestyle they used to, so now they have to make do- and anytime something goes missing and there is a traveler around, it's the first person they blame!!  How about blaming the Chavs down the road who've been robbing and causing trouble for years? 

  I haven't seen anything but contempt and hatred for travelers and then people are amazed when they react to outsiders in kind?  They broke laws with the Dale Farm, fine- that should be handled but I won't lose my sympathy for the innocent ones or objectivity to those who had nothing to do with it. ... I'll step off my soap box now.

"Travellers" seems to be a bit of a misnomer as many have lived at this site for 10 years!

I can see both sides and don't like seeing people evicted but they've long since known that they had to vacate the site, so should have gone by now. However, there does also appear to be an issue that BAsildon council have not offered an alternative site but have said there are other sites in different areas that have space. These sites have to be paid for by council tax, yet how many of these people are paying taxes? A lot of the fighting is coming from protestors who don't even live at the site.
Also, as previously said it's only part of Dale Farm. Half of it had planning permission and people are living there legitamately. The other part does not have planning permission - if I was to build an extension onto my house without first obtaining planning permission from the local council then they would instruct me to knock it down, and that is the issue here. It's not racist, it's not treating them any differently to how any other member of the community would be treated.
I dislike a lot of the language that is being used around this, but that doesn't detract from the fact that the "travellers" have not followed the due process.
You might also notice that many travellers don't even have road tax discs on their vehicles.

Racism is what's allowed them to live there breaking so many laws for so long.

You think *you* could get away with not paying your council tax, road tax, insurance, sending your kids to school? And if not, why not?

I am sure there are plenty of good people in their community, but as usual it is the bad eggs who get attention because the good eggs are off living thier lives. 

As for not wanting to move because the kids are settled in school, the school is made up of all children of travellers (minus three kids) and has one of the worst rates of attendance in the country.  Over half of the children enrolled were persistently absent last year and this is a primary school.

I too am sure there are good people in the traveller and gypsy communities. I personally  have not seen this in my specific area, but that doesn't mean I don't believe there are some out there. Like it has been said before, it is also racism to allow one group of people or race of people to not have to follow the same rules everyone else does. It still sets one group apart, and causes tension. If everyone had to pay taxes, everyone had to follow the rules for kids attending schools, etc, instead of allowing one group to get by without it, especially when they choose to settle in one spot for 10+ years, there would be a lot less bad feelings. That to me says they are settled into the community and should be part of the community in every way including following rules.

This might also be another stupid question but is racism or being a racist the correct term to use in this situation?

Bc being black when I think of these terms they do not properly discribe this situatuon? Unless gypesies are hated on bc of their race? I dunno maybe I am missing something?

the definition has evolved since the 60's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
"Racism" and "racial discrimination" are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, independent of their somatic (i.e. "racial") differences. According to the United Nations conventions, there is no distinction between the term racial discrimination and ethnicity discrimination.

Well, there are actually three different groups here. Gypsies and Irish travellers, where race might apply, and opportunists, where it wouldn't.

There's long-standing prejudice against all three, but I've heard lots of people stick up for Gypsies, some people stick up for Irish travellers, and absolutely no-one stick up for travellers-by-choice.

Thanks I did look up the defintion to make sure my way of thinking wasn't outdated but all the 1998 webster said I used the belief that certain races of people by birth are superior...discrimation based on race

I know you have different type of travellers from different cultures and hertiages but for some reason I lump them all in one pot.. That is a mental correction I need to make

Race is a totally invented thing, so using "racism" to describe things similar to the problems between people of different "racial groups" isn't really out of order, IMO.  I guess the only difference is that with race it's usually easier to see who you're being bigoted about right off the bat as people give visual clues.  I never got the pedantry about it.

Not saying that people are being racist about the Travellers or Gypsies, but if they were basing their judgements on the group as a whole rather than individual judgements, then that comes from the same place as doing it to someone based on the colour of their skin or the shape of their eyes.  

I don't know what to think about this situation.  I think it would have been covered differently if it were a group of non-Travellers setting up something in defiance of planning permission on land they own, maybe on both sides.  I do know that trying to ascribe values and behaviours for a large group of people, most of whom aren't involved in this case in the least, is probably not a fitting way of discussing it.

I stick up for the culture as a "traveller" I don't believe ANYONE should be treated different in the terms of how we pay for society and follow the laws - thats my biggest problem.

No one is above the law.

You want to travel and live all over and work as you go - GREAT! I know in the states if your kid misses so many days of school the parents are fined.  So how do travelling kids get an education - isnt a law they must be given education to a certain age?
Are they all home schooled and pass tests yearly?

A person of residence gets the benefits of education, roads and some get money as a benefit - shoudln't they have to follow the law and pay into it?